by Sharon Ihle
"You can never have children?"
She shook her bushy head. "I almost did once, though. I got knocked up my first time out as one of Lola's gals. I was almost thirteen at the time and scared to tell anyone about it, so it wasn't until my belly tattled on me that Lola knew. She got rid of it that same day,"
"Got rid of it?" Josie couldn't imagine what she meant. "How did she do that?"
Sissy took a long time answering, and when she did, her gaze never left the table. "She poked a silver probe into my privates and then shot a lot of water up inside me. I don't know what all she done after that. I passed out from the pain."
Josie shuddered, "Lord almighty, I didn't know people did such things. Is that why you can't have babies?"
Nodding, Sissy explained. "Lola messed me up pretty good—so good, I almost bled to death. I ain't caught a child since."
Josie definitely didn't want to become a mother, but not at such a high price. Glancing out into the yard, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving herself a chance to think about how to respond to Sissy's sad story. She noticed that the men and the children had disappeared into the barn with the mounts. The wind had come up and the trees were swaying, yet oddly enough, everything seemed very still.
All she could think to say was, "Oh, Sissy. I'm so sorry."
This seemed to drag the poor woman out of the past and back to the present. Sissy looked up at Josie, her eyes clear again, and said, "Don't be sorry. I'm told my baby was a girl. At least this way I don't got to see her grow up a whore like her ma, and my ma before me."
Why was it that every time Sissy had something profound to say, Josie didn't have the first idea how to respond? She didn't even come close to finding the right words on this one before Sissy spoke up again.
"I guess it's time," she said in a strangely hallow voice. "Looks like I got to be going back to Lola's now."
Josie glanced into the yard and saw that Long Belly was standing at the hitching rail in front of the cabin, tying his paint alongside the mule. Both animals were saddled.
She turned to Sissy, grabbed her hands, and said, "But I don't want you to go. We're really and truly friends now, and I'll miss you terribly if you go."
Smiling, at least as close to a smile as she ever got, Sissy gently eased her way out of Josie's grip. "Maybe I'll come back and see you some time next summer, if you're still here. Right now, I got to go."
"I don't see why. All you've got to go to is a whorehouse. You don't really want to go back there, do you?"
"Wouldn't a been my choosing if anyone had asked, that's for sure." Sissy pushed out of her chair. "But that's what I do, and it's all I know."
Out the corner of her eye, Josie saw that Long Belly was headed up the steps. Making one last effort to keep her friend close by, she said, "There must be lots of things you can do, anything but whoring."
"Look at me, girl." Sissy stood tall and proud, a neat trick considering that the top of her head barely reached the five-foot notch on a door frame. "How many white men or women are going to hire someone like me as anything but a laundress or a maid? l couldn't even get one of them jobs if what I used to do came known, and it would. Thanks for trying, but I know where I belong."
The door opened before Josie could renew her efforts, and in came Long Belly. He glanced at her briefly, and then directed his comments to Sissy. "Come outside with me, Buffalo Hair. I must speak to you, alone."
Sissy started toward him, but Josie hopped out of her chair and blocked the path. "No, you stay. I'll go. That way you two can have a little more privacy."
With one last look at her friend, Josie impulsively threw herself into her arms for a quick hug. Then she turned and ran out the door.
Chapter 18
Trying not to think of Sissy or how much she was going to miss her, Josie decided to lift her spirits by checking on Sweetpea. Completely avoiding the barn—she was in no mood to face Daniel or his little goblins—she walked down to the privy, and then made her way around back to the pen. She found the buffalo lying in a small wallow she'd dug in the snow, happily chewing her cud. Three heifers had joined her in the enclosure during Josie's absence, apparently the doings of Long Belly. As she approached the bison, it cocked its head and sniffed the air, then went back to chewing.
"Hi, Sweetpea," Josie called, bending over to reach through the pine rails and scratch the hide beneath the buffalo's thick matt of long, dark hair. "I see some of your old companions have moved in with you. Were you lonely?"
The animal grunted in ecstasy as Josie continued to scratch her shoulders, her small beady eyes languid and sleepy. Shifting positions so she could reach a little farther down the animal's back, Josie straightened her spine at the same moment something slapped against the back of her legs. Leaping away from the fence, she glanced down to see a slender pine branch lying in the snow at her feet. It was stripped of bark and sharpened at the tip into a little spear.
She glanced behind her, alerted by the sounds of muffled giggles, and then caught a glimpse of Daniel's heathen twins hiding behind a tree. Josie considered ignoring them and simply walking away, but she knew from experience with her own brothers that they'd just keep after her until a few rules were established. Spear in hand, she marched over to the pine tree.
"All right, you two," she said, catching sight of their bobbing heads. "Come out of there this instant."
The boys remained huddled behind the tree. Josie ducked first to the right as if chasing them down, and then veered around to the left of the tree at the last second, trapping them as they tried to run away. They wore little buckskin shirts and trousers, but were barefoot in the snow.
"Stop right there," she said, cutting off their escape. "Which one of you threw this at me?"
Two pairs of the biggest, blackest eyes she'd ever seen looked up at her, round and innocent. They muttered something to each other in Cheyenne, and then shrugged their small shoulders.
"Don't you speak English?" she asked, watching as their eyes grew even rounder and more guileless. "Well, hell."
Getting down to their level, Josie dropped to her knees. She held the branch up in front of their faces, and then shifted the spear from hand to hand, looking from one boy to the other. "Who... threw... this?"
The twins shot furtive glimpses at each other, but gave no indication that they understood her.
Josie touched the branch to the shoulder of the child on the left and asked, "Are you Bang?"
No response. "Two Moons?"
The child continued to stare at her, as adorable and silent as a porcelain doll. "Your father hasn't even taught you kids what your names sound like in English?"
They smiled in unison, still blissfully ignorant of Josie's careful interrogation of them. It was then she decided that it was just as well they couldn't understand her, especially considering that she'd decided to rename them Hell and Damnation.
"All right," she said, her tone less friendly. "Pay attention, you little pisspots, even if you don't know exactly what I'm saying. Since you can't understand me, I'm just going to have find another way to teach you some manners."
Josie climbed to her feet to regain her height advantage and waved the spear. "First of all, never, ever throw something like this at me again, or this is what you'll get in return."
She snapped the branch in half over her knee, and then brought the two switches down hard on the palm of her hand. The boys flinched and stepped away from her.
Josie smiled. "Finally, a language you understand. In that case maybe you've also figured out that I'll be blistering your worthless backsides with a switch, not my own hand, next time you try something this stupid." Punctuating the threat, she whacked the branch against her palm again.
The boys cried out in unison, then took off running for the barn.
"Hey, wait up, you two," Josie called, afraid she may have demonstrated her point a little too forcefully. "I'm just trying to teach you a lesson."
It occurred to he
r then that it might not be a bad idea to catch up to them and calm them down a little before they went running to their father. She ran as fast as she could, but was no match for the boys' fleet little feet. By the time she got to the barn and stepped inside, the twins were huddled behind their father's legs, big-eyed and innocent.
"What did you do to my boys?" Daniel demanded. "You scared them half to death."
They didn't look that all-fired scared to Josie. In fact, the one on the right wore a smirk.
"They shot me with an arrow, or whatever this thing is." She held up the sections of pine. Broken in half, the children's weapon suddenly looked no more lethal than two sorry pieces of kindling.
"How terrifying for you." Daniel's gaze, already narrow, became murderous. He barked something at the twins in Cheyenne, apparently ordering them out of the barn. The little piss-pots crawled out from the hiding spot behind their daddy and made for the door, each of them flashing Josie a smug grin that Daniel couldn't possibly see.
Suddenly, it promised to be a long, hard winter, and not necessarily because of the early snows.
In the cabin, Long Belly surprised Sissy by reaching out and gently touching her cheek. She backed away from him, rubbing the spot, and said, "Don't do that. I don't like it."
Long Belly advanced on her again, strangely persistent. "Why is this? Why will you never let me touch your face or put these hungry lips on your mouth?"
Sissy didn't know the answer to that herself. Nor could she explain why a simple gesture like touching her check seemed somehow more intimate than what he did between her legs.
At a loss, she simply said, "I just don't like it, that's all. We leaving now?"
He nodded, wriggling his long, enviably shiny braids. She started for the loft. "I'll just go get changed into my own clothes."
"There is no need for that. What you wear is yours to keep."
Since Sissy figured she'd earned the buckskins, she didn't try to decline the gift, "I'll just go pack up my things, then..."
''Later," he said, following her, then taking her by the shoulders. ''First we have business."
Assuming he wanted to get off with her one more time, Sissy began to unbutton her shirt. Long Belly slid his hand atop hers. "Our business today is between our heads, not our legs."
Long Belly was so tall, towering at least a foot above her, that Sissy rarely tried to look him in the eye. At that strange statement, she arched her neck back and gawked up at him.
"What kind of business could you possibly have with this thick head?"
He laughed, and then bounced his hands off the sides of her hair.
"You are a very funny woman, Buffalo Hair, one of the many reasons, I think, that I have grown these strange feelings for you."
Puzzled, she asked, "And what kinda feelings might they be, red man?"
He laughed, then repeated the second of the special names they called each other. "They are these, brown woman. I have a great warmth here for you." He put his hand over his heart. "A feeling that burns until it hurts when I think of sending you to live with the white man again. Do you have this strange burning for me?"
The feelings Long Belly spoke of were as foreign to Sissy as his Cheyenne language. She wasn't even sure what he was trying to say, or what those feelings meant.
Exasperated, she shook her head and said, "Maybe you got hold of some bad stew or something if you got a burning in your chest. Me, I'm the same as always. I don't feel nothing."
All the sparkle faded from Long Belly's eyes, but then it suddenly came back, even brighter than before. "You must feel something inside, even if it is hatred. I have thought of a way for you to discover what it is you feel for me. Will you let me try?"
Since he'd never done anything to hurt her before, and she couldn't imagine that he'd find whatever it was he was looking for anyway, Sissy reluctantly agreed.
"What do you have in mind?"
Without warning, Long Belly picked her up and carried her over to the counter, where he made a great ceremony of clearing a nice spot on which to deposit her. Then he spread her legs and moved up between them so the two of them were just inches apart. Sitting there at eye level with him, Sissy couldn't stop herself from smiling.
"There, see?" he said softly. "I think you are having a good feeling for me. Tell me what you feel when I do this."
He leaned into her, his mouth heading straight for hers, and Sissy brought her elbows up against his chest. "No kissing. How many times do I have to tell you? No kissing."
Long Belly smiled as if he hadn't heard. "Just once. Allow me to kiss you once. Then tell me you have no feelings for this red man."
Sissy would not admit to a certain curiosity over what it would be like to taste what others accepted as part of their daily lives. And she sure didn't want to examine why the thought of a harmless kiss frightened her so. In light of all that, it seemed that giving in would be the fastest and easiest thing to do.
"All right, go ahead, but be quick about it."
That said, she closed her eyes and offered her lips.
Long Belly was quick to take them, but that was all he did in a hurry. Once his mouth had claimed hers, he gently parted her lips with his tongue, and then somehow coaxed her into opening up for him. Images swirled in Sissy's mind the way his tongue twined around hers, brilliant reds and blues with shooting stars of yellow and white. She suddenly felt as if she were breaking up inside, losing little pieces of herself, and then her heart began to race, freezing her with fear. In a panic, Sissy began to fight against Long Belly's embrace.
He took his mouth from hers, but continued to hold her close as he whispered against her skin, "I have want of you as my woman, Buffalo Hair. I have no wish to take you back to Miles City. What do you want?"
She didn't know. No one had ever asked or cared what Sissy wanted, and now that someone did, the thought was terrifying, like offering freedom to a bird that had never known any life but the cage. She didn't know what she wanted.
Waiting patiently for her answer, Long Belly helped himself to another kiss, this one even deeper and more tender than the last. Something new stirred in Sissy as his mouth made love to hers, a feeling completely unrelated to the fear that any hint of intimacy usually spawned. She thought it might even be desire.
Pushing away from Long Belly's sensual lips, Sissy said, "Let me get this straight. Did you say you wanted me to go live with you on the reservation?"
He pursed his lips as if deeply troubled. "This is what l asked of you, yes, even though I know that it will be a hard and simple life for you. Difficulties will come, too, because ask you to live among people who do not speak your language. None of this is good or fair to you, but I need to have you by my side. Will you join me?"
Sissy's throat swelled, almost closing up on her, but she managed to eke out, "Will I? Oh, red man, that sounds like heaven."
"This means you will go with me?"
"Kiss me again first, would you, just like before?"
This time, when he took her mouth, there was a new urgency, a deeper thrusting of his tongue, a tighter embrace. Unmistakable desire quickened in Sissy's loins as the kiss wore on, and suddenly she knew exactly what she wanted.
Tearing away from Long Belly, she said, "I'll go with you, and stay as long as you want me to. But first, would you take me up to the loft? And, red man—hurry."
* * *
In the barn, Josie sat on a grain barrel while Daniel went on and on about his wonderful boys and how much she would enjoy tending to them if only she'd give herself half a chance.
"It seems to me," he said, "that since you have all those brothers, you should probably know a lot about children."
She nodded grimly. "I do. In fact, I know a lot more about them than I ever wanted to know."
He paused to glare, making damn sure she realized how testy he was getting. "Why don't you just try a little, harder to get along with the twins? There isn't a woman alive who can keep from falling in love with
those boys after you get to know them."
Josie seriously considered telling Daniel that yes, there was such a woman, and she was sitting right in front of him. She refrained, knowing such an admission would only hurt his feelings—and probably make him madder as well.
"I'm not making any promises," she finally said. "But I'll try a little harder if they will."
"Josie." He spoke to her as if she were a child. "They're four years old. What do you expect them to do? Behave like short little adults?"
She expected them to behave, period, but Josie said, "I'm just asking for a little respect. I don't think they like me very much."
"You're new to them, is all. Maybe if you do something special for them, they'll warm to you a little faster."
"Special? Like what?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe bake something for them, like that cake you made for Sissy."
Josie sighed, feeling as if she were taking a backward step into the past, but agreed to give it a try anyway. "I guess it wouldn't kill me to bake some cookies for the little fellahs."
"Now there you go." Daniel leaned over and kissed her lips. "Your mothering instincts just needed a little nudge to wake them up."
"Mothering instincts," Josie muttered. "Right."
Having deluded himself into believing that she would actually enjoy baking for his little pisspots, Daniel then dragged Josie out into the yard and called his heathens in from their play.
Grumbling under her breath, she pulled away from him and said, "Send the boys on in when you get them rounded up. I'd better go get started on that batter."
When she stepped inside the cabin, Josie saw that Long Belly was just coming down the ladder from his loft. He carried a small bundle in his arms along with his parfleche.
As he passed by her, he flashed a rare smile and said, "I will say good-bye now, but hope to see you and my brother at the reservation soon."
Surprised to find that she actually had some friendly feelings toward him, Josie returned his smile, "Good-bye, Long Belly. It's been real... different knowing you. Where's Sissy?"
